Melissa Boucher-Guilbert

Created on my birthday visit to Tancook Island, this pastel sketch captures the island’s bright schoolhouse, shoreline, and surrounding landscape.

An abstract drawing developed by tracing the rhythm of a song, then slowly filling each space with color and varied textures, challenging attention and creativity.

Five colourful prints made with leaves and flowers on paper, featuring blue and yellow textures with melted red wax dots, displayed on a wooden table with natural materials.

A sculpture made during the Alchemy Residency from found cardboard and recycled craft paper. The interior is inscribed with a letter to the artist’s son, and the two seeds within represent her children.

This project connects three generations through creativity, care, and reuse. Using fleece recycled from my late grandmother’s home, I collaborated with my sons to design and assemble these mittens. Each child needle-felted a mitten top, and I sewed them into wearable winter pieces. The process carried warmth in many forms—the tactile joy of making, the playful exchange between parent and child, and the quiet presence of a grandmother’s legacy. These mittens hold intergenerational memory, shared skill, and the transformation of ordinary materials into vessels of meaning.

Artist Statement

My practice is rooted in care, community, and process. I work with everyday and natural materials to create participatory projects that invite reflection on how we live together and how we care for one another and the land. Drawing inspiration from resourceful traditions and intergenerational knowledge, I see art-making as both a personal and collective practice — a way to nurture resilience, build connections, and imagine new possibilities.

As an educator, I aim to create spaces where students feel safe to explore, take risks, and discover their own voice. I emphasize process over product, encouraging curiosity, collaboration, and play as essential to learning. At the heart of my work is a commitment to collective care: supporting students in recognizing the value of their own contributions while experiencing the joy of making alongside others.

Biography

Melissa Boucher-Guilbert is a Halifax-based artist, educator, and community organizer whose practice is participatory and process-based, centring care, community, and resourcefulness. She works with everyday and natural materials to invite people to slow down, notice, and create together—treating art-making as a way to build relationships with one another and with place. Drawing on intergenerational knowledge and an ethic of “use what you have,” her projects remain welcoming and accessible to all ages.

Melissa is currently completing a Master of Arts in Art Education at NSCAD University. She has contributed to child-friendly, interactive design at the Museum of Natural History and continues to be engaged in community-based projects. Through LifeSchoolHouse., a grassroots network for intergenerational learning through skill-sharing, she hosts gatherings that connect people through creative practice. In educational settings, she creates welcoming spaces where students explore materials, collaborate, and experience the joy of learning through making.